There are multiple ways to fund or supplement your expenses in retirement - selling part of your retirement portfolio each year, getting a reverse mortgage if you own your home, buying high-yielding dividend stocks, owning bonds, etc. But with each of these options, you risk outliving your retirement portfolio or getting income that barely keeps up with inflation (such as with low and volatile bond interest rates) or having dividends stay flat or reduced after a good run.
As of June 2014, there were 54 companies on the Dividend Aristocrats list, and the reason I picked Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson and 3M is that each of these companies has been on this list for the past 25 years…which means they have each been raising dividends every year for the past 50 years at least…that's something!